A Postmedia News and Ottawa Citizen investigation revealed evidence last week of a "systematic voter-suppression campaign" in highly contested ridings during the election. Liberal leader Bob Rae will ask for an emergency debate in the House of Commons on Monday.

Photograph by: Handout
, CNSPICS

OTTAWA — B.C. has been involved in the voter suppression scandal that led to opposition MPs demanding that Prime Minister Stephen Harper take action against an alleged “fraud.”

Three B.C. ridings are among more than three dozen cited by opposition MPs as being targeted in the “dirty tricks” campaign aimed at using telephone calls before the 2011 federal election to discourage non-Tory voters from going to the polls.

Liberal leader Bob Rae called on Harper to “take some degree of personal responsibility”

for what a Postmedia News investigation concluded last week was a “systematic voter-suppression campaign.”

Harper, who has denied any knowledge of the incidents, said the government and the Conservative party will cooperate in the Elections Canada investigation, “but we are interested to see what information the members opposite actually claim to have.”

Joyce Murray, MP for Vancouver Quadra and one of only two West Coast Liberals in the House of Commons, said “several” supporters in her riding got late-night calls from people purporting to be Liberals who were “harassing and rude.”

The calls came from a number in North Dakota, the same U.S. state that — according to the Postmedia News investigation — was the source of vote suppression calls in a number of ridings across Canada before the May 2 vote.

“This may be illegal and is what you might think a banana republic would do,” Murray said in an interview.

“We think this is highly undermining of our reputation as a fair and democratic country that adheres to the rule of law. Clearly this cannot be swept under the rug by the Conservatives, as they’re trying to do.”

Murray later issued a statement through a spokeswoman saying that while she has “absolutely no evidence” that Tory rival Deborah Meredith or Meredith’s campaign team were involved in the calls, “it’s quite obvious who was set to gain from these calls.”

The Quadra campaign was a fairly close two-way race, with Murray taking 42.2 per cent of votes cast to Meredith’s 38.6 per cent.

Meredith said Monday she knows “absolutely nothing” about alleged voter suppression calls and described the tactic as “stupid.”

“The Liberals are fishing for reasons why they lost the last election, but I don’t think Conservative fraud is it,” Meredith said.

The New Democratic Party also drew attention to the Prince George-Peace River riding, where the party recruited former B.C. deputy premier Lois Boone to try to take the Tory-held seat from rookie Bob Zimmer, who stepped in when Jay Hill retired.

The NDP noted that a radio station in Dawson Creek, CJDC, reported on election day last year that voters “may have received a call yesterday advising them their polling station changed. Elections Canada wants to advise voters these calls are not from them and they do not know who is calling voters.”

Zimmer, who trounced his NDP challenger by taking 62 per cent of the vote against Boone’s 26 per cent on May 2, did not return a phone call Monday evening.

Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May said that supporters in her Saanich-Gulf Islands riding were contacted on election day last year and given false information about the location of polling stations.

“People were receiving phone calls on election day, telling them their polling station had changed,” she said.

The Green party leader said her campaign office received about a dozen complaints on election day. May added that her staff intends to contact election-day scrutineers to get a more accurate assessment.

“There was clearly a coordinated effort on a national level to discourage people from voting and that needs to be investigated.”

May recalled that on May 19, 2011, shortly after the election, she wrote Elections Canada and demanded a probe into allegations that Canadians received bogus phone calls directing them to the wrong polling stations.

May said the phone calls appeared to have had little impact in Saanich-Gulf Islands, given that the riding had a 75-per-cent voter turnout — the second-highest in Canada.

May also alleged that “voter suppression” tactics were used in the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding during the 2008 election, with phone callers telling some constituents to vote NDP when that party’s candidate had already dropped out.

A Postmedia News and Ottawa Citizen investigation revealed evidence last week of a "systematic voter-suppression campaign" in highly contested ridings during the election. Liberal leader Bob Rae will ask for an emergency debate in the House of Commons on Monday.

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